Business consultants are always looking for innovative strategies to generate clients. While word-of-mouth and referrals are excellent ways to drive new leads, it should not be the only method you use to build your book of business.
Many forward-thinking business advisors are turning to their websites to find and convert new clients. If you’re one of the thousands of business consultants who operate their websites on the WordPress platform, then you need to add these six types of plugins to help you generate more clients in 2018.
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6 WordPress plugins for business consultants
Thanks to the many, many WordPress plugins available, things that once required hours of effort are now automated. Check out our six favorites.
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Appointment scheduler.
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Testimonial plugin.
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Pop-up plugin to capture emails.
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An SEO plugin.
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An analytics plugin.
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Contact us form.
Ready to get organized? Read on.
1. Appointment scheduler
As a business consultant, you should look to streamline your internal processes while also finding ways to save money. One way to accomplish both of these objectives is to forego hiring an appointment setter and use an online tool to collect, track and manage your various appointments.
Bookly is a premium (for-pay) WordPress plugin that lets website visitors easily schedule appointments with you directly through your website.
This user-friendly software makes it easy for anyone to book an appointment with you or your colleagues. Bookly is easy to activate, customize and integrate into any WordPress theme. You can even charge for meetings directly in the booking application. Whether the appointments are with current clients or leads, Bookly gets the job done — with very little effort from you.
Other scheduling plugins to consider:
- Appointment Booking and Online Scheduling
- Pinpoint Booking System
- BirchPress Scheduler
- Booking Calendar
Adding an automated scheduling plugin to your website can improve the inefficiencies of manual scheduling and appointment management. Intuitive plugins can integrate with your business calendar to avoid double booking meetings or overlapping appointments with your personal schedule.
2. Testimonial plugin
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing relies heavily on testimonials. Testimonials help you build trust with leads by using a current or previous client’s direct quote that highlights your core competencies and performance. When you prominently display testimonials on your website, it adds credibility to your claims.
Because there’s lots of competition among business consultants, any way for you to differentiate yourself is important. Therefore, using a WordPress plugin like Easy Testimonials can be a smart way for you to stand out from your competition.
Easy Testimonials allows you to load various testimonials into a unique post that can be displayed in various locations on your website. Whether in a sidebar or widget area on your homepage, you can test the location of your testimonials for optimum conversions. An added feature is the ability to pick from 30 different theme styles, which lets you customize the appearance of your testimonials.
Other testimonial plugins to consider:
Regardless of which option you use, implementing a testimonial plugin is a great way to establish yourself as a credible business.
3. Pop-up plugin to capture emails
If you want to bring first-time visitors back to your consulting website, then you should consider using a pop-up plugin.
Pop-ups are small windows that show to your users when they take some action on your website. Typical email signup pop-ups trigger when someone first lands on a webpage. Other options include exit pop-ups that trigger when the user attempts to leave, overlays that take up the entire screen and slide-ins that appear on the sides of the webpage.
Sumo claims that if you generate 1,000 visitors to your website in a month, you could stand to add 30 new leads to your email list by adding this pop-up.
Sumo is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for creating and activating a pop-up on your website.
It’s actually an entire suite of conversion tools, including pop-ups, share buttons, a notification bar and overlay welcome mat.
Other pop-up plugins to consider:
While many people might think pop-ups are intrusive, they are still effective, especially at capturing emails.
4. An SEO plugin
Business consultants who want to grow their client lists in the new year would be wise to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). This is a digital strategy that uses onsite and offsite techniques to improve your website’s visibility in search engines like Google and Bing.
If you want to generate the most website traffic possible, then you need to have a sound SEO strategy — and that starts with onsite optimization techniques. This is where a plugin like Yoast SEO can really improve your search rankings.
The plugin has a step-by-step guide that will walk you through the most essential onsite SEO techniques like setting up your website’s title tag, adding a meta description, and improving your permalink structure.
Other SEO plugins to consider:
SEO is integral to creating a solid online presence, and there are plenty of options available to make sure your website is optimized for success.
5. An analytics plugin
No matter how much effort you put into building your consulting website and attracting visitors, if you’re not tracking, measuring and analyzing your traffic and conversions (from casual browsers to clients), then it will be difficult to properly assess your growth.
The first step you should take to start tracking your website’s performance is to set up a Google Analytics account and then add the code to your WordPress website. If you don’t want to deal with adding the embed code to your website, then you should look at installing the Google Analytics Dashboard plugin.
Google Analytics gives you an in-depth look at everything that happens on your website. From the number of people that land on a specific page to the source that leads the user to your site, Google Analytics allows you to get a 360-view.
Other analytics plugins to consider:
If you’re not measuring your traffic, then you can’t pivot as needed. Use analytics to ensure your site is getting the visitors it deserves.
6. Contact us form
If you’re a business consultant, then you understand the importance of effective communication. Your website is one of the most powerful communication channels you have with clients and leads. Most of the communication will be one-way, with you communicating to your visitors through blog articles, website text, videos and other forms of content on your website.
However, you should also allow for your visitors to communicate directly with you via your website. The simplest way to do this is through a Contact Us form. There are hundreds of contact form plugins available for WordPress, with most of them offering the same features: field customization, style options, automated confirmation emails and captcha security codes.
Other contact form plugins to consider:
Contact forms help you connect with your audience and improve your user experience. And as a business consultant, the easier it is for people to communicate with you, the better.
Start 2018 off fresh
As a business consultant, your job is to help other companies improve their efficiency and grow their businesses. Moving into 2018, you need to take this same mentality and apply it to your digital business. By utilizing WordPress plugins to help you streamline scheduling, convert leads and engage website visitors, you can put yourself in the best position to grow.
